1876.] Plain, Prairie, and Forest. 587 
ch 
ii 
e 
g 
; 
have recollected that over a large part of the forest region of the 
north and northeast there is, practically speaking, no precipita- 
tion at all in the winter, since the snow which then falls, to the 
exclusion of rain, accumulates on the frozen surface and does not 
begin to wet the ground until spring, when it, to all intents and 
purposes, by its melting Adds so much to the spring precipita- 
tion, thus bringing the total effect exactly to a par with that 
which is claimed by Dr. Newberry as being fatal to the exist- 
ence of forests. 
When we come to examine into the conditions of the climate 
in Southern Missouri and Arkansas, which are also regions of 
extensive prairies, we find that there is still less reason for advo- 
eating a deficiency of moisture as the cause of the treeless con- 
dition of the surface than there is farther north in the States for 
which statistics have been given. The tables of the rain-fall are 
very deficient for the region west of the Mississippi and south of 
the Missouri. Arkansas,. however, is put down on the Smithso- 
nian charts as lying chiefly within the belt of forty-four to fifty- 
six inches of precipitation. There are only two stations where 
observations have been kept up for any length of time; these 
are Washington, in longitude 93° 41’ and latitude 33° 44’, and 
Fort Smith, on the extreme western border of the State. At 
these places a precipitation of 54.50 and 40.36 inches is indi- 
cated. Short series at Helena and in Union County give re- 
spectively 81.08 and 74.63 inches. Helena, with this enormous 
precipitation, is the nearest station to Prairie County, of which 
the surface is “ mostly open prairie.”! An- examination of the 
Smithsonian charts will show that Southern Missouri is also a 
region of large precipitation. Here there is considerable prairie, 
some of it in the river bottoms.’ The region is a rough and 
broken one, and the conditions of soil and surface quite compli- 
cated with respect to distribution and character of timber. There 
is a considerable area covered with a scattered growth of oaks, 
locally known as “ oak barrens.” These, however, do not de- 
pend for their existence on any scarcity of moisture. 
As there is no proof whatever that an occasional year of 
drought in the prairie region would be a sufficient cause for the 
absence of timber, and as there is, furthermore, no proof that 
this region is peculiarly liable to droughts, it is hardly necessary 
to take this matter into serious consideration. It would be easy 
to point out regions on the Pacific coast and elsewhere in which 
1 D. D. Owen, First Arkansas Report, page 242. 
